Are you considering an occupational therapy home assessment? Here’s how an OT Home Visit can help you. In this article we cover:
What is an occupational therapy home assessment (Hint: It’s more than a home environment check of mats and grab rails)
What happens on an initial occupational therapy home visit assessment and what can you expect?
What are common home based therapy services that people request of Occupational Therapy Brisbane?
Your OT home assessment checklist: Before your first visit, we cover what you can do get the most out of it
Common questions answered about an OT home assessment, like "Do I need a doctor’s referral?"
So, What Is An Occupational Therapy Home Assessment And How Can It Help Me?
Yes, you would be right to think that an occupational therapy home assessment was just about changes to your home, well partially right, it’s much more than that and here’s why.
Your therapist wants for you to be able live your life on your own terms without any barriers. At some point your ability to meet the “demands” of the home where challenged be it from an illness, disease, disability or injury.
An OT home assessment will
Measure your current strengths such as your movement, thinking, and perception skills as well as your sensation such as your awareness of touch and pain.
Observe your ability to perform everyday tasks about the home which are important to you
Identify the home environment factors which are part of these tasks
Make an assessment of match or mismatch of your personal skills to meet the task and the environment and
Finally, provide recommendations with the goal to improve your ability to do the tasks about your home. This may include home modifications and prescribing assistive tools and technology but also personal programs to improve your physical, mental, social and perception skills in order to be as independent as possible. Not only that we work with the care or core support team so that they can also provide safe and effective support.
According to the AAOT “Occupational therapy practitioners are effective and important components of any home health agency’s patient care”
Furthermore, the Royal College of OT also reports on the established benefit of OT services at home.
But, what do people who use these home visit services report? Our vision for OT Home Visits is clear. We want for people to be the best they can be doing what is important for them.
That means, offering evidence backed, person centred services to bring out people’s strengths.
What Happens On An Initial Occupational Therapy Home Visit Assessment
This is your “first contact” with your occupational therapist. The therapist will come to your home with a plan to
Establish your goals, what you want to achieve, and really, what success means to you.
Commence or complete an assessment of you, your home and the key activities you’d like to do better. Sometimes the assessment process may occur over a few sessions. For example people living with cognitive changes, we’ll often complete an assessment over a number of sessions.
Lastly, outline a plan to achieve your goals.
Your therapist will want you to have at hand
An up to date medical summary. Knowing what your medical background, current medications and surgery history can save a lot of time at this point.
We’d rather focus the initial assessment time on building a deep understanding of your daily life and how your life situation impacts your goals.
What Are Common Home Based Occupational Therapy Services People Request
Occupational Therapy Home Assessment For Elderly
This service may be requested in response to recent hospitalisation. An outcome of an OT home visit for elderly clients will commonly include improving home accessibility, prevent falls and improve a person’s quality of life. Occasionally (and we’re excited when this happens) a person wants to “plan for the future” and consider their home options. Service may be engaged before or after hospital discharge
Occupational Therapy Home Assessment for Neurological Conditions
We’ve committed our practice to serve people living with a neurological condition. The following links below describe in more detail our service focus:
TeleHealth: Virtual Occupational Therapy Home Visit
Web supported teletherapy isn’t complicated. Using a web camera and microphone the teleconferencing tools we use means the therapist is “virtually” there in your home.
Helpful for people experiencing a neurological condition and living in rural and remote locations
For people who can’t access suitable health services due to COVID restrictions
Occupational Therapy Brisbane’s Home Visit Region
We offer mobile OT home assessment services across the Brisbane North to Redcliffe, Brisbane West to Kenmore, Brisbane South to Coorparoo and Bayside to Manly.
However, our telehealth OT home assessment services allows a “borderless” service should you need it. In fact we’ve supported people from Ipswich to China- yes, China!
Your OT home assessment checklist: what to do before your first OT home visit
Before your first OT home visit we ask that you:
Have completed the welcome pack questionnaire. This helps use get to a clear understanding of your priorities and goals quickly. If you’ve not received yours yet, please call us at 1300 783 200
An up to date medical summary
Any previous OT assessments that you feel are relevant
Any support claim or insurance documentation such as the NDIS or WorkCover
On Road Driving Assessment Lastly, outline a plan to achIEve your goals
Do I need a medical referral to see an OT?
No you do not, however we strongly recommend an up to date medical summary. When you ask your GP for this it will be commonly provided in the format of a referral form.
Will there be an OT Home Assessment Report?
Yes, in most occasions of the home visit an OT report will be provided.
If home modifications are recommended, what do I do?
Home modifications may be minor or major in their scope of works. We’ve a detailed post which describes in details the OT home modifications process.
How Can We Help You?
Please fill out the short form below and tell us how can we best help you? One of our team members will reach out when it comes through.
Article Sources
The World Federation of Occupational Therapists has published a position statement on the use of telehealth to improve accessibility to occupational therapy (World Federation of Occupational Therapists, 2014
Home Safety and Accessibility Assessments – AOTA (aota.org) –
Occupational Therapy Home Modification Assessment and Intervention (ajot.aota.org) –
Home Safety Self-Assessment Tool – Rehabilitation Science … (sphhp.buffalo.edu) – Falls are the leading cause of injury, disability, nursing home placement and death in adults over the age of 65 years. In the United States as in Australia, one in every three older adults falls each year.
Home Modifications and Occupational Therapy – AOTA (aota.org) –
Occupational Therapy Home Assessments: Supporting Community … (tandfonline.com) – (2002). Occupational Therapy Home Assessments. Occupational Therapy in Mental Health: Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 1-17.
Relationship between pre-discharge occupational therapy home … (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) – Pre-discharge occupational therapy home assessments are sound post-discharge falls-prevention strategies in non-neurological patients. The decision to conduct a home assessment should consider diagnosis, falls risk and functional independence.
Home Evaluations – Home Modification Occupational Therapy … (hmota.net) – The occupational therapy home modification evaluation is to identify and make recommendations to alleviate barriers to safety and independence based on specific client/family needs and client diagnosis and prognosis.
Home Quick – Occupational Therapy Home Visits Using mHealth, to … (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) – This article reports upon an initiative to improve the timeliness of occupational therapy home visits for discharge planning by implementing technology solutions while maintaining patient safety. A community hospital in Queensland, Australia article.
Dream Home Assessment (ps.columbia.edu) – The Dream Home Assessment is a performance-based measure of executive functioning in a non-routine, novel activity, which does not require reading.
Occupational Therapy: In-Home Assessment Program for Seniors (upmc.com) – As people age their need for help performing daily tasks may increase. Learn more about UPMC’s in-home care assessment program for seniors.
Predischarge occupational therapy home assessment visits … (onlinelibrary.wiley.com) – Background/aim: Predischarge home assessment visits are a commonly accepted, but little researched, aspect of occupational therapy practice. The aim of this research was to systematically investiga…
Occupational therapy services for adult neurological clients in Queensland and therapists’ use of telehealth to provide services: Home‐based assessment and intervention appear to be frequent components of occupational therapy practice among therapists working in neurological rehabilitation. AOTJ
